Curious to know how much revenue is realized from power generation on Tallulah.

I would think that Kevin, from the contact page (http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Directory/detail/listing/staff/) could put you in touch with the resources.

I have a copy but it does not include any information about the revenue from power generation. It is estimated, though, that Tallulah releases cost Georgia Power approximately $7,500 per release, or roughly $1,250/hour. Email me if you have any more questions -- sutton@suttonbacon.com.

It took a while to get to this one but I just looked up the most recent generation report I could find. The Tallulah generated 210,099,000 Gross KWH for the period 10/1/04 to 9/30/05. After on-station use the net generation sent to the switchboard was 209,283,000 KWH. Multiply out the cost per KWH and you can get an estimate of gross revenue. You would of course need to subtract out expenses to get net revenue. I don't know what that would be. The EIS should provide some insight.

Here's the link to the generation report:
[elibrary.ferc.gov]

There should be a section on generation and revenue in the Final EIS but it's a big file so you'll have to download and take a look:
[elibrary.ferc.gov]

Thomas O'Keefe
Pacific Northwest Stewardship Director
American Whitewater
3537 NE 87th St.
Seattle, WA 98115

425-417-9012
okeefe@amwhitewater.org

The EIS documents that I have studied all include average annual generation, average annual revenues and annual costs. Energy prices fluctuate quite a bit from hour to hour, day to day, etc. so revenue figures have to be averaged. The costs of new license conditions, such as whitewater release, increased fish flows, repairs to structures, new maintanence requirements, etc. all have to be factored into the total revenue picture. The draft and final EIS should show and discuss those numbers.

I am just starting to include links to appropriate FERC documents on river pages of rivers that are affected by hydro projects. The FERC elibrary is confusing if you are not used to it or only search in occasionally (like me). Having direct links such as Tom provided above will help more people to understand what is up with these projects. We should also include the expiration of the projects, so that activists of the future can be ready.

Paul M.

To follow up on Paul's comment we are working with our coalition partners at the Hydropower Reform Coalition to build a comprehensive website of the nation's hydropower projects. All the information is available through FERC's website but it is not easy to find if you are not used to navigating it.

We just went public with this and it's a little rough around the edges but we're getting it put together. As an example see the Klamath page:

[www.hydroreform.org]

We will have links to the license and key issues, maps of each project, and photos.

Also on the AW website we now have project pages. These provide background on our involvement in different projects and links to key documents. See the two examples below. We are slowly building this out and you will start to see more of them linked from the river pages.

North Fork Rogue
[www.americanwhitewater.org]

White Salmon
[www.americanwhitewater.org]

Thomas O'Keefe
Pacific Northwest Stewardship Director
American Whitewater
3537 NE 87th St.
Seattle, WA 98115

425-417-9012
okeefe@amwhitewater.org

Thanks all for the information.

I am very curious to understand the true economic value of weekend Tallulah releases. The utilities generally use the very small hydro sites like Tallulah for incremental generating capacity during peak loads. Peak loads generally do not occur on weekends. Bearing this in mind, theoretically speaking the only real opportunity cost GP feels with recreational releases is lost water they might otherwise store in the reservoir for later use.

I'm not terribly familiar with the Hydrology of the Tallulah's watershed, but I have noticed that during periods of heavy rain excess water is released into the gorge. So theoretically speaking there could be a surplus of water in the drainage basin from a power generation perspective. If this were true, then the true economic cost of the realeses would in theory be negligable. Obviously, one would have some detailed data on storage capacity, flows into the lake, over the dam and through the powerhouse to answer the question with any precision, but it would certainly be interesting to know.

My hunch is that most utilities are probably overstating the cost of recreational releases. Tallulah would be an interesting test case for this hunch. This sure poses an interesting water rights question as well. Sould a utiltiy have such entitlement to water?